


Loved You, First

by softlyforgotten



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco, The Young Veins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan goes a little bit crazy on tour sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loved You, First

**1.**

The last day of the summer holidays, Ryan and Spencer go down to the pool. Spencer wears white flip-flops and Ryan goes barefoot because it’s just around the corner, and he’ll feel silly going in his sneakers. He broke his flip-flops in a bike-riding-at-midnight escapade, split them right in the middle.

They complain about school the next day, and the heat, and how Ryan’s dad won’t let Ryan dye his hair black (well, Ryan complains about that; Spencer nods his head and is secretly very, very glad). At the front desk, Spencer pushes the money his mother gave them across the counter with a slightly sweaty hand, one of the coins sticking to his palm; Ryan reaches across and flicks it off unthinkingly. They fall into step on the way to the pool.

It’s an outdoor one; later, Spencer will grimace at his pink shoulders and cheeks in the mirror and wish he had remembered to put sunscreen on. At the time, all he does is slide easily into the water after Ryan’s bombed in, smile at him.

That night they lie outside after dinner on Spencer’s lawn and make up stories about what they’re gonna do with the rest of their lives. Spencer tilts his head enough that he can smell the chlorine on Ryan’s skin.  


*

Ryan doesn’t go to his prom. He tells Spencer that it’s a teenage cliché and Spencer nods at him, and instead he and Ryan and Brent sit in Spencer’s living room and play video games and eat corn chips dipped in salsa. Brent can only stay till twelve, and then he goes, but first they all trek out onto the street and have a midnight skateboarding competition down the hill near Spencer’s house. Brent falls flat on his face and then props himself up on his elbow, grins stupidly at them, and Ryan laughs and laughs and Spencer flops down beside Brent, says, “You win for style.”

“I always win for style,” Brent says, and then he has to go. Back inside, Spencer beats Ryan three times in a row at Mario Kart and after a while Ryan gets bored with all the losing and drags them upstairs. It’s almost two AM. Spencer says, “Do you wish you’d gone?”

“No,” Ryan says, and yawns into Spencer’s pillow. Once, when Spencer was thirteen and Ryan had had nightmares all night, Spencer had woken up with a horrible cramp in his leg and his neck and had thought _we’re probably too old to share a bed, anyway_. He’d felt guilty afterwards for days.

Ryan looks at him out the corner of his eye and says, “Me and Kasey broke up. Again, you know.”

“Oh,” Spencer says. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “But, she’s a fucking bitch, so.”

“Okay,” Spencer says. The next morning he wakes up on the far edge of the bed, with Ryan hogging all the covers, but he doesn’t think much about anything at all, really.

*

They get tickets for the Fall Out Boy concert and Ryan makes Spencer wait in line with him all day, which means skipping school (which means lying to his mother, saying that he’ll go straight from school to Ryan’s place, no, they don’t need a lift, Ryan will drive, yes, they’ll be safe) and spending a day sitting on the concrete in the dry heat while teenage girls squeal all around them. Spencer has never felt so out of place in his life; Ryan is talking to one of the older girls, nodding along to everything she says and pushing the hair out of his eyes. The girl is leaning closer towards him. Spencer is pissed off and sick of being ignored.

About two hours before doors open, though, there is a sudden springtime downpour, and just like that Ryan switches his attention away from the girl. He and Spencer stand up and Ryan puts his chin on Spencer’s shoulder and leans into him, says, “Fuck, we’re gonna get soaked,” and sounds cheerful about it.

The show’s pretty good. A week later, Brent introduces them to a guy from his music class, and not that long after that Pete Wentz is flying down to see them. Ryan says something bewildered and shaken about having seen a show not that long ago to Pete, and Pete laughs and nods and says something back, but Spencer isn’t listening. By the time they’d gotten into the venue, he remembers, the rain had long since stopped and they were dry again, and so it’s weird how more than anything about that night he remembers the scratchy dampness of his clothes and the way the tips of Ryan’s hair had curled slightly as they’d dried.

 

 **2.**

When he falls asleep, Ryan’s t-shirt folds around his bones so that he is tiny on the couch, like a doll. Spencer thinks it’s not so much porcelain as it is a rag doll, made out of the scraps of a thousand pieces of material, with one eye hanging on by a thread and a bit of the stuffing leaking through a hole in the side, and even so still kind of pretty. Brendon tiptoes in an exaggerated way around him pulling faces, and Spencer looks at him and wonders when he got so small.

Spencer looks up at a sudden rush of air, tugged after Brendon as if he holds it on a rope, and Brendon has tripped, sprawled on the floor. He grins sheepishly at Spencer, and Spencer looks down and away.

“I’ll ring Pete,” he says, and Brendon flops onto his back, arms out at either side, and stares at the ceiling. “We had to, Bren,” he says, and Brendon says nothing, only stares.

*

The next day, at the park, on the tree (like a list of instructions, Spencer thinks: day, park, tree), there is one red leaf that hasn’t realised it’s winter yet and Ryan scuffles at the dirty snow absently and waits for it to fall. Spencer goes off to buy ice cream, chocolate for himself, vanilla for Ryan, and the rainbow mixture that’s there especially for kids because Brendon’s a dork.

“You know that’s just vanilla with food colouring, right?” Ryan says absently, and Brendon takes Ryan’s hand and licks the vanilla that’s dripped onto one of his fingers. Spencer makes a disgusted noise and Ryan punches Brendon, but softly. Spencer doesn’t tell them that he almost ordered another vanilla for Brent. Almost.

“You’ve got to get bright coloured ice cream,” Brendon informs him. “How are you supposed to be happy without bright ice cream?”

Spencer doesn’t know.

*

That night Brendon falls asleep with what Spencer imagines would be a muffled thump against his pillow, if it was a noise at all. Spencer and Ryan sit back to back on the couch, heads leaned back against each other, and neither of them says a word.

 

 **3.**

The airport is busy, and two thirteen year old girls spot Ryan and corner him when he’s getting the rest of them their coffee. He ducks his head and Spencer sees him from across the room, sees the way he smiles with all his teeth and how big his eyes get, and Spencer wishes that he wasn’t always so good at reading Ryan, especially when he’s here and there’s still nothing he can do. He watches Ryan give one of the girls an awkward, bony looking hug and take a photo with both of them, and then he gets up to meet Ryan and take the two extra cups of coffee away from him. Ryan looks a little like he might spill them.

“Hey,” he says, and considers scuffing a hand through Ryan’s hair, but Ryan spent a long time this morning styling it in the mirror – even though all they’re going to do today is sit on planes – so he decides against it.

Ryan smiles at him but doesn’t say anything, and when Spencer says, “Were the fans nice?” Ryan turns away in the pretence of going to give Jon his coffee.

Spencer rolls his shoulders back, stretches his stiff neck, and watches the line of Ryan’s back.

*

Spencer’s got his headphones in but the music’s on low, so he hears it when Jon asks, uncertainly, “Is Ryan okay?”

He doesn’t look up. Ryan’s in his hotel room, Spencer knows, sleeping, and Brendon’s putting on fresh eyeliner in the mirror. They’re all tired. Spencer thinks he’s forgotten what it’s like to not have jet lag anymore.

Brendon says, “Yeah, he’s – you know, Ryan just. He goes a little bit crazy on tour sometimes.” Spencer lifts his gaze to see Brendon turn around and smile, mouth wide and red. Spencer wants to say, _you go a little bit crazy on tour sometimes too, Brendon_ because it’s true, because Brendon can’t ever decide what he wants to do, because he spends hours feeling homesick but can’t quite bring himself to ring his parents. Spencer doesn’t say anything at all, though. He hums along to the music, instead, and Brendon looks up and sings the next line, even though he can’t hear it, even though the only guide he’s got is Spencer’s tired, rough hum.

“Right,” Jon says.

*

Ryan is not sleeping when Spencer goes back up to the hotel room. He’s holding his Sidekick but it’s not turned on, and the bedside lamp is lit, letting out a warm, yellow glow. Ryan has his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin propped on top of them, and he regards Spencer with a cool, blank gaze.

Spencer says, “Thought you were napping?” and muffles a yawn.

“Yeah,” Ryan says, which doesn’t answer anything, but Spencer doesn’t push further. Instead he crawls into his own bed, pulls the covers up above his head.

“Show tomorrow,” he says.

“Yeah.”

Spencer sighs and rolls over. The blankets are over his eyes but he can still see the light from Ryan’s lamp filtering through and it annoys him unnecessarily. He’s sick of being worried about Ryan, Spencer thinks. He’s done enough of it by now, surely. Surely it’s someone else’s turn.

An hour passes, Spencer lies awake, and Ryan’s lamp doesn’t go off. Finally he sits up, pushing the covers off of him and says, “ _Ryan_!”

“Sorry,” Ryan says immediately, and reaches out and switches off the lamp. The room plunges into a bluey darkness, and Spencer blinks, adjusting. Ryan doesn’t lie down, stays perfectly still, back curved slightly.

“Ryan,” Spencer says, and Ryan looks at him.

“I keep thinking,” Ryan says in this slow, smiling voice, like he’s a little bit amused at his own stupidity. “I keep thinking like I miss Brent.”

 

 **4.**

So. Ryan stops sleeping.

Spencer finds it easier to think about solutions and such if he thinks about it like that. Ryan doesn’t seem to want solutions, though, and it makes Spencer feel a little bit useless, because he’s good at logic and now Ryan doesn’t want it. Instead Ryan sprawls on the couch with his head in Jon’s lap and watches _The O.C._ , or he shares headphones with Brendon and the two of them sprawl for hours on the shaking bus floor (thank God it’s music, thank God it’s Ryan, or Brendon might never have stayed still that long).

Ryan is, apparently, done with logic.

*

If it’s a hotel night, Spencer will try and stay up with him. They’ll share a bed again, watch whatever’s on TV and mock it in low voices. Spencer asks, once, if Ryan wants to ring Brent, but Ryan shakes his head and doesn’t say anything else about it, so Spencer drops it. It took him a while to call Brent, a month or two after. Their conversations are still a little stilted, a lot awkward, but Brent sounds less angry every time, so Spencer keeps calling. It sucks a little bit that Brent’s started sounding sad, instead, but Spencer doesn’t know what he can do about that.

Once or twice, he’ll look up halfway through a conversation to find Ryan watching him, head leaning back against the wall, hands dangling between his knees. Ryan is all bones these days, Spencer thinks, and he looks paper-white and worn and his dad is dead. Spencer doesn’t know what to do and he’s not used to that when it comes to Ryan, so he just keeps talking.

The times it gets really bad are when Spencer stops thinking about how ill Ryan looks and starts thinking about his fingers and his wrists instead, and the way his mouth looked after that day Jac had visited.

*

They go swimming in the hotel pool one day, all four of them and Zack, and Brendon demands piggy backs all around the pool and gets them, and Ryan and Jon have competitions to see who can hold their breath for longest. Spencer swims laps, and then just floats on his back. The air inside the room is foggy and sort of humid from the warm chlorine. Spencer is reminded, somehow, of green grass and sunburn.

After a while, he stands up to find that he’s drifted all the way into the corner of the pool. Ryan emerges beside him, hair wet, out of breath. He says, “I kicked Jon’s ass,” and Spencer bumps fists with him in silent acknowledgment.

Ryan is smiling at him, eyes bright and warm, and their arms are brushing, Ryan so close in front of Spencer. “Did you ever see,” Ryan begins, voice kind of twisted with holding in laughter, “that Jesse McCartney video? You know, for that one horrible song?”

“Uh,” Spencer says. “I dunno, dude, Jesse McCartney did a lot of horrible songs.”

Ryan grins and shrugs and turns away, and when Spencer opens his mouth he says, “Race you back to the others,” and dives back under, swimming right along the bottom of the pool.

Spencer hopes, a little bit, after that, but after the show that night they trek back up to the hotel room and Ryan still can’t sleep.

 

 **5.**

Ryan crawls into Spencer’s bunk and curls up against his back, breathes out warm air against Spencer’s neck. He says, “I might call Brent, you know. Sometime soon.”

“You might,” Spencer echoes, and if he sounds annoyed it’s because he knows, now, that Ryan won’t. (He wishes, sometimes, that he wasn’t always so good at reading Ryan, especially when he’s here and there’s still nothing he can do.)

All Ryan does though is nod, bumping his forehead into the back of Spencer’s skull and say, “Yeah, I might. Yeah.”

“Goodnight,” Spencer says, and Ryan laughs softly and Spencer feels it on his skin.

*

Outside the bus it’s raining. Ryan is slumped on the couch, one hand dangling off the side, and Spencer stands in the doorway and watches him until Ryan looks up and notices him and rolls his eyes. Spencer goes over and sits with his back up against the couch and Ryan twists his hand through Spencer’s hair absently, pats at his head until Spencer tilts his head back enough that he can squint at Ryan and say, “Don’t tug.”

“Okay,” Ryan says, and his hand stills but stays there. Spencer means to put the television on and watch something, he does, but instead he just ends up sitting there, looking out the window and eventually falling asleep. When he wakes up Ryan is reading his book with one hand, the other warm and still on Spencer’s head.

*

Spencer’s not sure how exactly it happens or for how long it’s been waiting to happen. Just, he crawls down from the top bunk at the same time as Ryan’s crawling down from his one, and they meet at the foot of the stairs, and Ryan sways forward, clenches a hand in Spencer’s shirt. Spencer takes a wary step closer and Ryan tilts his head up to him (Spencer tries to remember the first time they noticed that Spencer was finally taller than Ryan).

Then Ryan says, “G’morning,” and Spencer opens his mouth to say it back and Ryan rocks up on his toes and swallows the word. Spencer breathes out kind of harshly and Ryan twists even closer, pushes Spencer up against the corner of the bunk and clings to him. They’re not doing much of anything besides mouths pressing together but Spencer still feels a little dizzy and when Ryan breathes out and breaks away Spencer reaches out without thinking.

They kiss with open mouths but no tongues, and Spencer puts his hand at Ryan’s waist, feels his best friend’s bony hip underneath his fingers. Ryan is wearing old, worn out sweatpants and a soft t-shirt that Spencer thinks might belong to Brendon, but he smells very much like Ryan.

Someone’s footsteps pass in the front lounge close by and they jolt apart, glancing around over their shoulders. Ryan says, “Uh,” and he looks startled and caught in the headlights, frightened.

“Morning breath,” Spencer says stupidly, because he can’t think of anything else to say. “Sorry, dude, that’s kind of gross.”

“Maybe,” Ryan says, and then he touches Spencer’s elbow and goes out to get some coffee.

Spencer brushes his teeth for a full three minutes that morning, squinting in the mirror to see if he looks any different.

 

 **6.**

Ryan says, “How long now, until we get to go home?” and it takes Spencer a moment to realise that he means Vegas. Sometimes Spencer is still caught by surprise by the way that the kid who spent most of his time in Vegas bitching about how he couldn’t wait to get out of it now fixates on the place as home.

Spencer says, “Not long. You gonna stay with me for Christmas?”

Ryan looks at him and Spencer takes a step backwards, because sometimes Ryan will still catch him off guard when he looks at Spencer like that. They haven’t said anything to each other about the kiss that morning and Spencer doesn’t plan to; he’s pretty sure, even, that it’s unlikely to ever happen again. They’re not awkward around each other and Spencer thinks it’s really only in the privacy of his own head that he looks at Ryan differently, but every now and then Ryan will look at Spencer in a strange, warm way and the ground beneath them will feel a little shaky for a moment.

“Yes,” Ryan says. “Of course.”

*

Brendon says, “So, Jon invited me to Christmas with his family.”

Spencer looks over at him and raises an eyebrow. “You going to go with him?” he asks.

Brendon shrugs. “Probably not. It would probably be nicer, you know, less fanatic let’s-welcome-Brendon-back-into-the-fold,” and Spencer laughs because Brendon needs him to. Brendon giggles a little nervously and then continues, “But, you know, I feel like… I probably should, because I was so pissed about, about not being able to, last year.”

Spencer nods. “Right,” he says, and then he gets up and gives Brendon a hug. He says, “You can always come hang out with me and Ryan and my mom’s gingerbread if it gets too weird.”

Brendon grins. “Yeah,” he says. “Like Ryan is any less weird,” and Spencer cuffs him over the back of the head and does not agree out loud, at least.

*

The night before they go home, Spencer dreams they decorate the Christmas Tree. It looks really good; they’ve somehow managed to get each bauble straight and it’s really tall like it used to be when they were kids – Spencer has to climb up onto a chair to put the golden star on top. When he gets down, Ryan takes his hand and says, “You smell like the tree.”

Spencer wakes up with his chest aching and his hands reaching, and when he and Ryan get home, getting out of Spencer’s mom’s car and pushing open the familiar door, Spencer’s sisters have already set the tree up.

 

 **7.**

Christmas Eve, Ryan gets up from the sleeping bag on the floor and says, “Shit, I just realised I forgot to give Jon his present. It’s still in my bag.”

Spencer says, sleepily, “You can give it to him when we meet up again.”

“It won’t be the same,” Ryan says, but he sounds more disgruntled than sad, and Spencer pulls back the covers, lets Ryan crawl in next to him. Ryan’s hands move uncertainly for a moment, as though unsure where to place themselves, and then eventually Spencer gets sick of it and shifts closer, throws a leg over Ryan’s knobbly knees.

“Stop _wriggling_ ,” he says grumpily, and Ryan nods and hums quiet acquiescence. He adjusts himself and then closes his eyes, and it takes Spencer a few moments to realise that Ryan has drifted off to sleep quietly and easily, hanging onto Spencer’s elbow.

*

They’re on the plane to Chicago, and Brendon’s already there waiting for them with Jon. Spencer wants to ask Ryan how he can still have such a clearly defined _home_ , but he doesn’t, just grins and turns his head to look at Ryan, says, “It’ll be good to see them again.”

Ryan blinks at him, and then puts his hand on Spencer’s cheek and draws him in, mouth pressing warm and gentle against Spencer’s. Spencer opens his mouth to say something in surprise and shit, there’s Ryan’s tongue, and Ryan’s pushing up the armrest between them and shifting closer. He doesn’t seem to care that they’re on a plane, and Spencer’s pretty sure no one’s going to care, but he breaks away anyway.

Ryan’s eyes are bright. Spencer says, breathless, “What – what was _that_?”

“Want me to show you again?” Ryan asks, voice dry but weirdly patient, too and he leans in again, but misjudges the distance. Their teeth clack a little painfully but Spencer rubs his nose against Ryan’s and Ryan bursts into delighted laughter.

They don’t really talk, but Spencer shifts closer and after a while falls asleep, even though he didn’t mean to. When he wakes up there’s a slightly gross wet patch on his hair, because apparently Ryan fell asleep too. Spencer’s glad that Ryan can sleep again, but it doesn’t stop him from getting annoyed about his hair being drooled on.

When they get off the plane Ryan spots Brendon and Jon first, drags Spencer up to them. “Jon,” he says, grinning wildly, “ _Jon_ , I have a present for you.”

“Me, too,” Jon says. “I fucking forgot to give you guys your presents first. Brendon’s already got his.”

Brendon bursts into an overly detailed explanation of it and they set off towards Jon’s car. Spencer feels uncertain again, but Ryan hangs back a little and drapes an arm around Spencer’s shoulder and leans in close, presses closed lips just once to Spencer’s jaw. Then he half-closes his eyes and lets Spencer steer him along. Ryan’s humming some old song, and Spencer thinks it might be a carol but he can’t remember properly.

Brendon looks over his shoulder at them, presumably to make sure they’re paying attention to his story, and closes his mouth, the lines in his forehead softening. He looks, suddenly, healthier, and Spencer wonders for how long all of them have looked exhausted, even though Ryan was the only one not sleeping.

“Oh,” Brendon says, and smiles.

*

Ryan stretches out along the floor, in front of the doorway that leads into the bunks so that all three of them have tripped over him at least once in the course of the morning. He’s reading a book Pete lent him, and his face looks smooth and contented. There are dark circles under his eyes, because last night he couldn’t sleep, but that’s okay; it was a hotel night, and he’d woken Spencer up and they’d fucked with Spencer’s wrists pinned up above his head.

Ryan still looks faintly pleased with himself and Spencer resists the urge to kick him as he passes. Instead he steps gingerly over him, pretends that the bus has knocked him off balance, and sits down heavily on Ryan’s back.

Ryan yelps, twisting his shoulder around and Spencer falls backwards onto the floor, half-on Ryan, and blinks innocently up at him. _We’re okay_ , he thinks. _This is all going to be okay._

 

 **8.**

Spencer lies close, all touch, handsfeet, skinfingers, breathhair, and thinks that perhaps the two of them are (too) used to things coming in pairs. Ryan lets out slow, shivering breaths that leave a cloud in the air and Spencer asks, “Are you cold?” and lies closer.

Ryan is not quite real in this light, half-transparent with the unfiltered glow of the moon through the little window with cheap plastic curtains, and Spencer sighs and closes his eyes. They are both sticky and sweaty, enough that they slide together and then get stuck, but there is not quite enough effort in either of them to make them stand and shower and do all the necessary, cleanly things that maybe they would do if Brendon and Jon weren’t asleep and if Spencer wasn’t lying close enough to notice that Ryan’s eyes are bright with something.

Ryan shifts and checks his Sidekick; three AM, and he murmurs, “We should go to sleep.” Spencer yawns obligingly but doesn’t close his eyes, and they lie there awake for a long, long time in the cold night. It doesn’t really matter that much, after all.


End file.
